Various Isms July 9, 2019 “You weren’t even listening, were you?” said my friend. “Well, that’s a strange way to start a conversation,” I replied. (The above is not original with me. Another I’ve always loved — my parents kept it on prominent display when I was growing up — “Shut Up, He Explained.”) John Zussman: “I enjoyed your Independence Day post, which seemed perfectly calibrated for a relaxing, reflective summer holiday. Great idea to recommend The Princess Bride for those who haven’t seen it, but did you know the book (written years earlier) is even better? See why I think so here. As for a health movie, try Forks Over Knives, which you can stream on Netflix. I wish you a happy Fourth. May democracy survive.” Bob Stromberg: “Thank you for saying Trump is a fascist in your July 5 post, linking to a description of Laurence Britt’s 2003 article. Just a small couple of points: Mr. Britt’s first name is spelled with a “u” not a “w” and he is not a “Dr.” (he told me this in an email). Link to the original article instead? “Fascism Anyone?” → Yes! The same 14 characteristics . . . for all of which, it seems to me, Trump tests positive. Written in 2003, no less, so not some specifically anti-Trump construct. The article concludes: Does any of this ring alarm bells? Of course not. After all, this is America, officially a democracy with the rule of law, a constitution, a free press, honest elections, and a well-informed public constantly being put on guard against evils. Historical comparisons like these are just exercises in verbal gymnastics. Maybe, maybe not. Jim Burt: “Experience tells us that Republicans have been willing – nay, eager – to characterize as ‘socialist’ any person or program which tries to do anything positive for anyone but the wealthiest Americans. This has been a characteristic of their rhetoric for at least a century. By contrast, Democrats have not used comparable language to describe Republicans and Republican policies, though they could have if real communists and socialists had not preempted the term ‘fascist’ by using it to describe anyone who disagreed with them. It’s a shame that we’ve been deprived of useful words by their misuse. To make the correct understandings of these terms clear, resort to a dictionary might be useful: Socialism is defined as “a political theory advocating state ownership of industry.” Also, “an economic system based on state ownership of capital.” This doesn’t describe any Democratic candidate, though independent Bernie Sanders, masquerading as a Democrat for the duration of the primary season, comes closest. Fascism is defined as “a political theory advocating an authoritarian hierarchial government (as opposed to democracy or liberalism).” Hmm. Who does this sound like? A more complete understanding of fascism can be gathered from Laurence Britt’s 14 Characteristics of Fascism. Liberalism is defined as “a political orientation that favors social progress by reform and changing laws rather than by revolution.” Also, “an economic theory advocating free competition and a self-regulating market.” Democracy is defined as “the political orientation of those who favor government by the people or by their elected representatives.” Also, “a political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them.” Also, “the doctrine that the numerical majority of an organized group can make decisions binding on the whole group.” Social democracy is a political, social and economic philosophy that supports economic and social interventions to promote social justice within the framework of a liberal democratic polity and a capitalist mixed economy. Social democracy has also been defined as a democratic welfare state that incorporates both capitalist and socialist practices “We could, with perfect accuracy, describe Trump as ‘fascist’. Unfortunately, the media would clutch their pearls and faint if we did that, so I think we should just call ourselves liberal Democrats and refer the media to the dictionaries for the rest.”
Who I’m Supporting For President July 8, 2019November 30, 2019 I’ve maxed out to one of our terrific presidential candidates but first let me tell you my 2020 investment strategy. The GOAL we all share, of course, is to restore sanity to the White House, confiscate McConnell’s gavel, and flip state legislative chambers and governorships in advance of the redistricting that will flow from the 2020 census. Yes? The most powerful way to do THAT, I will argue below, is NOT by supporting individual candidates next year but by investing in a massive program of early organizing and registration NOW. With that in mind, I was beseeching a friend to save our democracy and quite possibly the species.* “What exactly are you looking for?” he asked, seeming to have bought into my premise. “Half of one percent of your net worth.” “I’ve already done that,” he said. “Really?” I was caught off guard. “That’s great! To the DNC? Where?” “I just gave $50,000 to Kamala Harris in various ways.” Long pause as I wondered HOW he had done that (the basic limit is $2,800 for the primary) . . . but decided not to lose focus by asking. “Oh, Ellen,” I said instead (not his real name, clearly). “Kamala is terrific, but you just gave $50,000 to beat other DEMOCRATS and nothing – ZERO! — to beat Trump. So I still need $50,000.” Ellen sounded a little crestfallen. It was hard for him to disagree. “Be LOGICAL, I implored. We really need to win.” “I know we need to win. Call me next year. I’m tapped out.” Barack Obama’s life advice for his daughters, growing up, was: “Be kind and be useful.” Pretty much says it all, no? For 2020, we need a similar summation: “Be logical and be generous.” BE LOGICAL Invest to defeat Republicans, not Democrats. If there’s one primary candidate you absolutely love, okay — give her or him 5% of your overall 2020-cycle budget. But no more! Invest either 100% or, at minimum, 95% of your budget in early organizing and registration. Do it now. Money contributed to hire organizers now is SO much more impactful than the exact same amount given next year. Hired NOW, organizers have that much longer to recruit and train volunteers . . . who in turn have that much longer to inspire MORE volunteers . . . all of whom will have that much longer to register new voters and organize their neighborhoods. Trump is shooting for 1.6 million volunteers. How many should we shoot for? How will we get them without starting early, and in a big way? It’s also more powerful to give now because so few do – most are busy giving to Democrats fighting other Democrats. They’re not thinking logically. They’re not thinking ahead. Give little or nothing to individual candidates. That’s hard, especially when you know them; but here’s why: Candidates spend a ton on advertising; yet elections these days, I think, are mainly about turn-out, not persuasion. Great TV ads are not going to persuade people to register to vote. Or to turn OUT to vote. Let alone to switch tribes. Candidates can’t abandon advertising; but I see little risk they will UNDER-spend on TV (often, the TV buy is how their consultants make money) and zero risk that most Democrats follow this strategy. Billions will go to individual candidates next year. And that’s great. But the smart money, it seems to me, goes into the ground game: organizing for massive registration and turn-out of folks who will surely vote our way IF THEY VOTE. Funding a massive turn-out is so much more efficient than funding hundreds of specific races. If we get our folks to the polls, they typically vote for ALL our candidates – even when they know nothing about them, just that they’re Democrats. Many of our voters, working two jobs to make ends meet, may not know Ohio HAS a secretary of state, let alone the names f the candidates. But they know what team they’re on. They know they want Democrats to win. BE GENEROUS Thanks in part to many of you, we took back the House last year. Can you imagine if we hadn’t? Now, we get to write history again – with an outcome that is entirely uncertain. I think we’ll beat Trump/Putin. (What? You don’t think Putin is enjoying himself as he watches America’s world leadership evaporate? You think he won’t keep attacking?) If our turn-out is high enough we can also take back the Senate and flip state legislative chambers that we haven’t held in a long time. But we’d better do it now, because I don’t think we get a second chance at this. Trump is – literally – a sociopath and a fascist. (No? Which of these 14 criteria, enumerated in 2003, does he fail to fulfill?) Can what is left of our norms and our institutions survive four more years? With THAT in mind, I ask people – as you know – to give big. Dip into capital. I made this pitch over a few weeks to a charismatic woman whose name you might know — so I’ll call her Jack – who is renting a summer place for $17,500 a week. “I’m with you,” Jack said more than once. She is fun, she is beautiful, she has more energy than I ever will – and I was looking for six figures. “I’m in,” she said a week or two later, “but it won’t be as much as I know you’re hoping for.” Hey, I thought; if every “no” came with $25,000, well . . . $100,000 or $250,000 might have been more appropriate to the moment, but we’ll be truly grateful for whatever number she decides is right. She decided on $1,000. And I’m grateful. But my hope, of course, is that something she sees on the news or social media will cause her to join the fight at a scale commensurate with her resources. Another wonderful, millionaire friend got defensive when I noted that over the last 10 years she’d given “only” $20,000 in federal contributions – $10,400 of it to a senate candidate in a safe state. Given her resources, it was neither logical nor generous. If these last 10 years – and THIS year – are not times to join the political struggle in a logical, generous way, when is? In my own case, I’ve maxed out to Mayor Pete and decided not to replace my pool. The pool got swept away at high tide under a full moon last December. (I blame Trump.) The contractor’s bid to replace it is $331,000. It’s a Sophie’s choice. I love hosting water volleyball in that pool on sunny summer days. It’s a big thing for my friends and me. But so is saving mankind. So what to DO???? . . . forgo what works out to about 50 glorious hours of water volleyball each summer? . . . or help to hire thousands of organizers to recruit and train hundreds of thousands of volunteers to – we hope – save the country and perhaps the species*? What to do? What to do? I maxed out to Pete in January because (a) I trust his judgement and his intellect and feel sure he’d restore dignity, integrity, empathy, and vision to the White House; (b) I think the asymmetry debating Trump would be devastating; (c) the mere fact of his candidacy is a huge win, opening hearts and minds to the cause of equal rights. That said, I’ll be 110% behind Joe, if he gets it, or Kamala or Elizabeth or Amy – or Bennett or Bullock or Bernie or whomever — because all that REALLY matters is that we win. Which is why 95% of my political giving since January has gone to fund 1,000 rising college seniors in 7 key states that the DNC is hiring and training to register and organize voters on campus and in their low-income home neighborhoods. But why just 1,000? With your help, it could be 2,000. I think it should be 5,000. If enough of us are logical and generous – click here, please – this story will have a happy ending. Really: please click. (The page you’ll hit is for major donors, but there’s a box for “other” — and no amount is too small. I’ll see whatever you do, to say thanks.) And pass this on to YOUR list, if you think it makes sense to do so. Thanks! *We have just 10 or 20 years AS A SPECIES to get on a sustainable trajectory, it seems to me. There were 2.5 billion passengers on this little spaceship when I was born, 7.6 billion now, a few short years later – and technology races ahead exponentially. After 200,000 years since it occurred to humans to stand erect – during the first 199,900 of which nothing we did could jeopardize the habitability of the planet – it comes down to the next few years to get this right. No easy challenge even with the most thoughtful of leaders . . . but doomed to failure, it seems to me, if it falls to Trump, McConnell, Devon Nunez and Sean Hannity to see us through.
It Takes A Big Man To Apologize July 5, 2019July 6, 2019 And I don’t mean the “if my remarks made anyone uncomfortable, I’m sorry” sort of apology. A real . . . heartfelt . . . wrenching apology, like these from people who once led the “ex-gay” movement. Take four minutes to see what they think about conversion therapy now. But how much harm did they do before they apologized? How much harm did former Alabama governor George Wallace do before he apologized? How much more harm will Trump enablers do before they apologize . . . if they ever do? Trump is a sociopath. Trump is a fascist . (No? Which of these 14 criteria, enumerated in 2003, does he fail to fulfill?) From his enablers, it’s not apologies we seek. We just want them to stop.
Equal Justice Under The Law July 3, 2019June 30, 2019 Love and justice. For love, if you don’t know, watch The Princess Bride. (Seriously? You’ve never seen it? That ends now.) For justice: HBO’s new documentary, True Justice: Bryan Stevenson’s Fight For Equality. I suppose there are also truth and beauty. But truth and justice — like matter and energy — may be one; love and beauty, another. So we may be able to keep the list to two. Well, three: health. I don’t have a movie for that one. But try to walk as much as you can. Have a great long weekend. We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Buy And Hold July 2, 2019June 30, 2019 Seeing little value to having it sit forever in a file drawer, Ronald Wayne sold his copy of a 1976 contract he’d signed with Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak for $500. A nerdy collector’s item. Why hang on to it? A couple of decades later, in 2011 — and this has got to smart — that document sold at auction for $1.59 million. (Oh: and the document itself gave Mr. Wayne 10% of Apple which, had he not sold it back to them 12 days later for $800, would today be worth $92 billion.) Just saying.
Fat Shaming: Not The Way To Go July 1, 2019June 30, 2019 I label Trump a lying cheating bullying sociopath — all objectively true — but never mock his appearance. Looks-ism, I’ve always felt, is the pervasive, unnamed cousin of racism, sexism, and the rest. (Actually, says Google, it is named: “lookism.” But have you ever heard anyone use that term?) In that context, I offer this cry from the heart by Your Fat Friend: #MarALard*ss and the Left’s Fat Problem Progressives’ point of gleeful ignorance might also be our Achilles’ heel It started on Sunday morning. Jon Cooper, Chairman of the Democratic Coalition, called his 239,000 followers to tweet using the hashtag #MarALardass. By the end of the day, the hashtag was a trending topic on twitter, replete with an endless stream of fat jokes. I sat at my laptop, a lifelong fat person and a lifelong progressive, watching it all unfold. My stomach sank, turning in on itself, as thousands of anti-Trump tweets targeted him not for his racism, xenophobia, transphobia, ableism, misogyny, proud history of sexual assault, destructive policies, bold power grabs, or the vast and serious harms he’s causing in communities across the country and around the world. Instead, they posted pictures of his belly, his buttocks, his double chin. Photographs that didn’t look fat enough were enhanced to look even fatter. One person after the next — people with equality and ally in their twitter bios — took aim not at Trump’s actions, but at his body. Unsettled, I went to bed, hoping for deep sleep, but finding little of it. My night was restless, my sleep light, and what little dreams I had swirled around the wave of angry responses I knew would follow. And they did. I woke up the next morning to hundreds of twitter notifications, angry replies from fellow progressives incensed at being asked to consider the collateral damage of their insults. The initial tweets were troubling, but when fat people (including me) called for critiques more substantive than “he’s fat,” many responses became dismissive, aggravated, aggressive. We’re hitting him where it hurts. This is how we get to him. He needs a taste of his own medicine. Some turned speculative. You’re probably just some Republican troll anyway. Only a Trump employee would defend him this way. Who made you the PC police? I sat at my keyboard, feeling despondent, powerless, exhausted and perplexed in equal measure. I understood their responses, feeling so driven to anger, so impotent that shouting schoolyard insults at strangers felt like the only rejoinder. If I can’t make him stop, at least I can make him hurt. But hurt hasn’t stopped his virulent anti-immigrant rhetoric. It hasn’t tempered his misogyny. And it hasn’t ended his presidency. There was no strategy here, just the frustrated belief that any retaliation might be useful. I thought about the fat people who would read those tweets in this tsunami of proud mockery of fat bodies. I thought about the people who would feel emboldened in their desire to shame and shout down fat people by the simple virtue of our bodies. I thought about myself among them. How thin was the ice where I stood? How many political disagreements would it take for my body to be ridiculed this way? Which of my friends, family, colleagues would use the hashtag? How long would their gleeful laughter ring in my ears? How much of my suffering would they need to see in order to consider a simple request for decency? When could my actions, as a fat person, be considered on their own merit, divorced from the body that was seemingly to blame for so much? Once again, my body was expendable. This has happened so many times before: having to choose between the movement I love and the only body I have. #MarALardass is so far from the first time my fellow progressives have made their feelings about bodies like mine abundantly clear. For years, the American Left has attacked its opponents, created public policy, and written off voters — all in the service of anti-fat bias. I was 27 years old in 2010, but suddenly felt like a child. Michelle Obama, then the First Lady of the United States, launched Let’s Move, a campaign to “reduce childhood obesity to 5%” in two decades. That same day, the President created the Task Force on Childhood Obesity, aimed at creating a national action plan to meet the goal of Let’s Move. The launch of the campaign loosed a wave of new, panic-ridden conversations about the scourge of childhood obesity. News networks and entertainment shows, already saturated with content about the obesity epidemic inundated the airwaves with reports about fat children. And in amongst all those stories, all that attention, there were virtually no voices of fat people. We were always talked about, never talked to. Always lectured, never asked. Here we were, our size made an epidemic, our wayward bodies creating some national crisis, always on display, but never listened to. Fat people were to be seen, and never heard. We were the bogeymen, the instructive moral of a sad story, and who would listen to a cautionary tale? Who would consider what this new war did to its child soldiers, the fat kids who were suddenly enemy combatants? I held off news coverage as much as I could, changing channels and turning pages in the paper when the topic came up. But it wore on me. News footage regularly featured fat bodies milling around in public, filmed from the neck down, without their knowledge or consent. I found my eyes searching the screen for my own body. . . . Dan Savage, frustrated with straw man arguments against marriage equality, set up a scarecrow of his own in a piece titled Ban Fat Marriage: << Since we know that obesity is “contagious” — someone with an obese spouse is 37% more likely to be or become obese — then we shouldn’t permit the obese to marry . . . >> I hadn’t let the wave of fat panic get to me until that moment. As I read on, I wished the ground would swallow me whole. Even in my own community, the community I had dedicated my young life to serving, I was little more than a rhetorical device. My body made me a punching bag, and I was exhausted and bruised from going so many rounds. Throughout the day, other LGBTQ people chattered about the piece, scandalized and delighted by its risqué take. One sent me the link. “Thought you’d like this.” Commiseration had never left me feeling so alone. I have spent my life as a progressive, taking regular and sustained action for social justice, economic justice, and more. And I have spent the duration of that same life as a fat person. Too often, those two facets of my life are pitted against one another, and the progressive community I love leaves me to choose between the only body I have and the politics I have dedicated my life to pursuing. #MarALardass, Let’s Move and “Ban Fat Marriage” were hardly the first times the Left had taken aim at fat people, and they certainly wouldn’t be the last. The political Left had long since used the deep-seated fear of fatness to attack opponents, galvanize a base, and symbolize capitalism, greed, poverty and ignorance. As a proud member of the political Left, I say this with love and heartbreak: we have made it abundantly clear that we hate fat people. . . . This is a matter of hurt and harm, but it’s also a matter of strategy and values. 70% of Americans are fat — designated by their BMI as either “overweight” or “obese.” Fat people make up a majority of this country — and a majority of its voters. Fat people vote, organize in our communities, and play political leadership roles. Strategically, fat people aren’t just a bonus. We’re a political necessity. But every day, fat folks on the Left are asked to sacrifice our bodies for our values. We are asked to ignore our own skin, to shoulder the insults hurled at bodies like ours, so that we can continue making a political impact. Continuing to take aim at our bodies means writing off a supermajority of voters. Continuing to forsake fat people is also out of step with our own stated values of dignity, justice, inclusivity, equality. When we talk about fatness and fat people, we use the logic of bootstraps, tough love and personal responsibility, hallmarks of the rightwing thinking that sacrifices humanity at the altar of judgment. We talk about calories in, calories out like we talk about poor people saving money. We assume that we could outwit poverty, outsmart our own bodies. Suddenly, we become so deeply conservative. What are your values? Is the way you talk about fatness and fat people in line with those values? I can’t answer those questions for you. Only you can do that. But I can tell you what my experience has been like, spending countless hours dedicated to the Left as a 340-pound woman. It is exhausting to dedicate myself to a movement that finds my body, and its dignity, so readily expendable. I am singed and ragged from being so readily used as kindling to stoke the flames of public disdain; battered from so long being used as a political football. I long for the day when, in my political home, my body can be simply a body. . . . Until then, my question for my compatriots on the Left: where do you want your values to end? Do they extend only to your political allies? What about to people whose bodies you find unsightly? What of the people you use so readily as metaphors? How far do your values extend? Will they stop short before they reach my feet? Could you agree to a ceasefire with bodies like mine? Could you focus on the substance of your political opponents’ arguments, rather than taking aim at their bodies, and mine? Can you name Donald Trump’s racism and Chris Christie’s corruption without mocking their bodies and, by extension, mine? Do you talk about me the same way if I do something with which you disagree? What do you want this movement to stand for? Who do you want to stand with you? Am I allowed to stay? My friends and I never tried the Big Ass burger at Agua Azul because, yes: it’s healthier to be lean than obese. But fat-shaming is not the way to go.
The Mueller Report: Starring John Lithgow And Annette Bening June 28, 2019June 27, 2019 But first, take six minutes to meet someone you’ve likely never heard of, just named to lead the Human Rights Campaign. What a remarkable story HIS is. (Thrown out a window to avoid assassination?) And now, if it’s not practical to read the Mueller report, take 90 minutes to watch it performed? Have a great weekend.
A Tax You Should Love June 27, 2019June 25, 2019 ” . . . over the last three decades, the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans saw their net worth grow by $21 trillion, while the wealth of the bottom 50 percent fell by $900 billion . . .“ With that in mind, people in the top tenth of that one-percent are calling for a wealth tax you and I wouldn’t have to pay. Read their call to action: A LETTER IN SUPPORT OF A WEALTH TAX JUNE 24, 2019 TO: 2020 Presidential Candidates We are writing to call on all candidates for President, whether they are Republicans or Democrats, to support a moderate wealth tax on the fortunes of the richest 1/10 of the richest 1% of Americans—on us. The next dollar of new tax revenue should come from the most financially fortunate, not from middle-income and lower-income Americans. America has a moral, ethical and economic responsibility to tax our wealth more. A wealth tax could help address the climate crisis, improve the economy, improve health outcomes, fairly create opportunity, and strengthen our democratic freedoms. Instituting a wealth tax is in the interest of our republic. Polls show that a moderate tax on the wealthiest Americans enjoys the support of a majority of Americans—Republicans, Independents, and Democrats.’ We hope that candidates for President will also recognize the force of the idea and join with most Americans in supporting it. Some ideas are too important for America to be part of only a few candidates’ platforms. The concept of a wealth tax isn’t new: Millions of middle-income Americans already pay a wealth tax each year in the form of property taxes on their primary form of wealth—their home. The kind of moderate tax on the richest 1/10 of 1% that we support just asks us to pay a small wealth tax on the primary source of our wealth as well. Several candidates for President, including Senator Elizabeth Warren, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and Representative Beto O’Rourke, are already supportive of the idea. The first specific candidate proposal, introduced by Senator Warren, would provide millions of families with a better shot at the American dream by taxing only 75,000 of the wealthiest families in the country. The proposal is straightforward: It puts in place a tax of 2-cents-on-the-dollar on assets after a $50 million exemption and an additional tax of 1-cent-on-the-dollar on assets over $1 billion. If you have $50 million or less you are not paying the tax. It is estimated to generate nearly $3 trillion in tax revenue over ten years. This revenue could substantially fund the cost of smart investments in our future, like clean energy innovation to mitigate climate change, universal child care, student loan debt relief, infrastructure modernization, tax credits for low-income families, public health solutions, and other vital needs. That a moderate tax on a minuscule number of Americans could raise so much revenue simply reflects historic levels of wealth among America’s richest. The top 1/10 of 1% of households now have almost as much wealth as all Americansin the bottom 90%. Those of us signing this letter enjoy uncommon fortunes, but each of us wants to live in an America that solves the biggest challenges of our common future. We are in favor of a wealth tax for at least six key reasons: A Wealth Tax Is a Powerful Tool for Solving Our Climate Crisis. In addition to better rules on carbon pollution, more American investment is needed now to tackle climate change. This could both accelerate innovation and speed implementation of solutions that create a clean energy economy and a low-carbon future. A wealth tax asks those of us who have benefitted most from our economic system to help fix one of its most devastating and fatal flaws. A Wealth Tax Is an Economic Winner for America. It would be a powerful instrument for greater economic growth and success. Reinvested both across America and among those less wealthy than ourselves, a wealth tax would extend prosperity. Along with resources for climate crisis investments, America needs a revenue source for other public investments in addition to private investment and philanthropy. Greater public investment in America’s aging infrastructure, child care, and education will not only solve important problems but will also increase productivity in the long run and promote sustained and broad-based economic growth. Easing student debt would boost entrepreneurship and homeownership rates, which have significantly declined as the costs of higher education have skyrocketed. A wealth tax could help with innovation and job creation—America’s entrepreneurial economy, despite its many successes, needs strengthening.” Put simply, a wealth tax would strengthen the American economy in ways that benefit all Americans. A Wealth Tax Will Make Americans Healthier. America’s most experienced public health experts point out that more resources are needed for major public health challenges like cardiovascular disease, the nation’s top killer, and high levels of opioid addiction.” High rates of inequality have been linked to lower life expectancies. The wealthiest Americans are now estimated to live up to 15 years longer than the poorest Americans, and individuals living in disadvantaged communities are more likely to die before the age of 75, regardless of their income level. With a modest tax on the most wealthy families to fund investments creating opportunities for lower-income and middle-income families, we can improve public health outcomes and extend life expectancies. A Wealth Tax Is Fair. A wealth tax would help close the large gap in effective tax rates between very rich families and everyone else. Warren Buffett has pointed out that he is taxed at a lower rate than his secretary. The top 1/10 of 1% are projected to pay 3.2% of their wealth in taxes this year, while the bottom 99% of households are projected to pay 7.2%. This imbalance creates resentment and makes it harder for working-class Americans to achieve social mobility. Taxing extraordinary wealth should be a greater priority than taxing hard work. The most fortunate should contribute more. A Wealth Tax Strengthens American Freedom and Democracy. It would slow the growing concentration of wealth that undermines the stability and integrity of our republic. Countries with high levels of economic inequality are more likely to concentrate political power and become plutocratic. The founders of America knew this, and feared that an economic elite might become ensconced as leaders and erode the effectiveness of the republic. Today, major policies seldom come to pass without the prior support of wealthy elites or other wealthy interests. Division and dissatisfaction are exacerbated by inequality, leading to higher levels of distrust in democratic institutions—and worse. That’s one reason we don’t view a wealth tax as a sacrifice on our part: We believe instituting a wealth tax would lead to political, social, and economic stability, strengthening and safeguarding America’s democratic freedoms. A Wealth Tax Is Patriotic. In our republic, it is the patriotic duty of all Americans to contribute what they can to the success of the country, and the wealthiest are no exception. Others have put far more on the line for America. Those of us in the richest 1/10 of the richest 1% should be proud to pay a bit more of our fortune forward to America’s future. We’ll be fine—taking on this tax is the least we can do to strengthen the country we love. What about the arguments against a wealth tax? They are mostly technical and often overstated. Some raise important questions about implementation and enforcement. But as the Warren proposal shows, we can limit potential evasion and reduce tax cheating by building on lessons learned in the United States and other countries. Others question whether assets owned by many ultra-millionaires and billionaires, including private equity and art collections, can be accurately assessed for tax purposes. But such assets are frequently valued—upon resale, donation, bankruptcy, divorce, or death. Some have argued that a federal wealth tax is unconstitutional. But here again, some of the country’s most prominent constitutional scholars—including two former heads of the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice—have argued convincingly that a wealth tax is constitutional. Far-reaching policy proposals nearly always require considerable effort to iron out complexities —and that effort has always been made when the cause is important enough. The process of instituting a wealth tax would in itself likely improve the measurement tools to facilitate implementation. Those of us who have signed this letter believe it is our duty to step up and support a wealth tax that taxes us. It is a key to both addressing our climate crisis, and a more competitive, stronger economy that would better serve millions of Americans. It would make America healthier. It is a fair way of creating opportunity. And it strengthens American freedom and democracy. It is not in our interest to advocate for this tax, if our interests are quite narrowly understood. But the wealth tax is in our interest as Americans. That’s why we’re joining the majority of Americans already supporting a moderate wealth tax. We ask that you recognize its strong merit and popular support, and advance the idea to tax us a little more. To see who these patriots are — and the footnotes backing up their assertions — see the full PDF.
God’s Gift To The World June 26, 2019June 25, 2019 Could it really be Trump, as half of all Republicans polled seem to believe? First He sent Jesus, then Trump? Here’s a different take, in case you missed it: “How to Break the Republican Lock on God.” Watch the debates tonight and tomorrow. We have so many good candidates — not one of whom is a vulgar pathologically lying sociopath. Yet we could still lose. This, from Politico, strikes me as required reading: Dear Democrats, Here’s How to Guarantee Trump’s Reelection. “You’ve got a historically unpopular opponent in the White House, but there are nearly a dozen ways you could still blow this.”
Max, Chica, and Kenny June 25, 2019June 23, 2019 As if you were not already persuaded . . . This Man Ate Expired Food For a Year and did not himself expire. (Thanks, Barry.) . . . 84 percent of consumers at least occasionally throw out food because it is close to or past its package date, and over one third (37 percent) say they always or usually do so. That food waste in landfills generates carbon dioxide and methane, a greenhouse gas 28 to 36 times more effective at trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. And you are not just wasting calories and money. You are wasting all the resources that went into growing, packaging and transporting that food. . . . Here is a terrible story of how the Justice Department has been corrupted to encourage obstruction of justice. (Thanks, Glenn.) And here is a wonderful story. Not political in any way. Just human. And canine. With a surprise ending. (Thanks, Peter.)